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1 – 4 of 4Isabelle T. Szmigin, Deirdre Mary O'Loughlin, Morven McEachern, Kalipso Karantinou, Belem Barbosa, Grigorios Lamprinakos and María Eugenia Fernández-Moya
In the context of European consumers’ experiences of austerity, this study aims to advance current resilience theory in marketing through developing persistent resilience from a…
Abstract
Purpose
In the context of European consumers’ experiences of austerity, this study aims to advance current resilience theory in marketing through developing persistent resilience from a context of austerity influenced consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
Following an interpretivist approach, 38 face to face, in-depth interviews were conducted with European consumers from Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece who were affected in some way by the global financial crisis.
Findings
Building upon limited conceptual and empirical investigations in social geography, the analysis identifies the themes of persistent stressors and temporal orientation as constants, alongside day-to-day coping, relating and pragmatism, consumer adjustment, repertoires of resistance and transformation as key elements of persistent resilience within the consumption context of austerity.
Research limitations/implications
The study addresses the limited theoretical and empirical focus on persistent resilience and austerity and directly contributes to consumer behaviour and marketing theory in understanding persistent resilience and its implications.
Practical implications
Changes to behaviours as a result of persistent resilience included reducing and stopping consumption, discount shopping, alternative consumption in the form of growing or making and mindful consumption through wastage reduction and re-use.
Social implications
The study highlights the significant social impact of austerity while also identifying positive outcomes for social relations among family, friends and the wider community.
Originality/value
This study develops and extends Golubchikov’s (2011) theory of persistent resilience through exploring European consumer responses to austerity, identifying key consumption characteristics relevant for marketing theory and practice.
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Mary Loonam and Deirdre O'Loughlin
The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of self‐service banking technology and investigates customers' perceptions of internet banking self‐service within the Irish…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of self‐service banking technology and investigates customers' perceptions of internet banking self‐service within the Irish financial services sector. This qualitative study of the Irish retail banking sector explored consumers' e‐banking interactions and experiences in addition to assessing the dimensions critical to e‐banking service quality.
Design/methodology/approach
A purposive sampling technique was employed to recruit 20 consumers representing the desired range of demographic characteristics (e.g. sex, age, profession), previous internet experience levels and product‐related knowledge.
Findings
Despite commonalities between traditional service quality and e‐banking service quality dimensions, due to the remote form of the online encounter, many traditional service quality attributes were found to be redundant and instead e‐dimensions such as web usability, trust, access and information quality service recovery and flexibility emerged as important to e‐banking service provision. Based on an extant review of the literature ten e‐service dimensions were proposed and evaluated empirically in the context of e‐banking service quality. Overall, process quality emerged as key within the online context, with nine out of the ten proposed e‐banking dimensions relating to the service process.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to previous research by adding to existing knowledge regarding what constitutes e‐banking service and the determinants critical to e‐banking service quality. The paper makes key recommendations towards enhancing current online financial services quality and delivery.
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Deirdre O'Loughlin, Isabelle Szmigin and Peter Turnbull
This study investigates the nature of customer‐supplier interaction that currently exists within Irish retail financial services. Specifically, issues relating to the role…
Abstract
This study investigates the nature of customer‐supplier interaction that currently exists within Irish retail financial services. Specifically, issues relating to the role, meaning and importance of financial service interaction within the context of current demand‐ and supply‐side relationship marketing issues are explored. Although the literature proposes that the relationship marketing (RM) approach is particularly applicable to the financial services sector, the research findings raise questions as to the appropriateness of general RM theory to the current nature of interaction between consumers and their financial services providers. In an age of increased depersonalisation and automation impacting upon financial service quality and delivery, the paper questions the relevance of the “relationship” concept and proposes the notion of an “experience” as a far more relevant and meaningful construct. The nature and importance of this experience to consumers is explored and three levels of customer experience are conceptualised which are identified as brand, transactional and relationship experience.
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